By Bill Cameron, WLS-AM News

(CHICAGO) At City Hall, a coalition of community groups has filed a federal class action lawsuit to try to rein-in the Chicago Police Dept’s massive Gang Database.

Nobody seems to doubt the gang database contains lots of errors. The city’s inspector general is investigating and even CPD is working on ways to adjust the algorithm it uses to rank the risk of a gang member.

But Coalition for an End to the Gang Database attorney Beth Homsy says it’s still unconstitutional, saying “It dis-proportionally affects black and latino members of the community in violation of the equal protection clause of the constitution. It also violates the due process clause of the constitution because CPD publicizes and shares the information and that sharing has resulted in people losing jobs, people being denied bonds, people suffering immigration consequences, people having consequences in terms of housing and of their education.”

Interesting about the coalition’s press conference was that they held it in a 4th floor City Hall lobby under a couple of  surveillance cameras.

@ 2018 WLS-AM News